So...NATO is expanding...

Airedale260

Well-known member
No, it's not pro socialism. I'm just not a cuck for bankers like you seem to be acting like. America jumped into world war 1 to make sure France and Britain won because we ended up giving them many loans and lend lease and other support. If they lost or collapsed economically then they could not pay us back, and the bankers in New England aka progressive capital of America would have lost a lot of wealth. But what is good for the progressive elites is not good for America. SO yes it was the rich who drove us into world war 1.

But now you’re just shifting the goalposts. This discussion has nothing to do with World War I, it’s about World War II and the Cold War. The motivations for fighting in the latter two are very different from the former, and even the former is more than just “rich bankers protecting their investments.” But that’s a topic for another day.

As for China, we should make our own semi conductor industry. If we can't THEN yes we should back Taiwan. But unless you are saying Americans are subhumans who rely on others there is no reason for us to not have our own chip industry.

It’s not so much that we “can’t” make semiconductors, it’s that the various costs (precision engineering, components, resources to make the components, labor skilled enough to assemble the components (which is a fuck of a lot harder than, say, manufacturing hammers at the hammer factory). It’s called institutional knowledge, and it’s something that the U.S., like pretty much every other country, simply does not possess. Taiwan, however, does, because they made the decision to focus on research, development, and production over the past 50 years. No that isn’t a typo: It took Taiwan half a century to get where they are today. It’s an absolute win for them, and U.S. companies that invested in their research also made out very well.

Now, you’re probably asking “Why didn’t the Americans just decide to go it on their own and build stuff here?” Well, a couple of reasons. First, because the amount of money U.S. investors was pretty small compared to Taiwan basically throwing everything it could into the field. It was not a sure thing by any means, and so the decision was made to help fund the research and gain some knowledge, but more importantly, if it all went to shit and turned out to be worthless, it would be Taiwan, not the U.S., that would be facing an economic disaster on an epic scale.

As it was (and still is), Taiwan had a century-long head start in building the tools needed to build the tools to build semiconductors and the factories, etc (yeah the origins of it, like glass etching and glass and silicon manufacturing, go back much further than one might think) and so it turned out to be a massive success that benefited both countries: Taiwan because it gives them an edge in technology and manufacturing that simply doesn’t exist in most of the world, and certainly not on the scale needed today, and the U.S. because it’s actually cheaper and easier to defend Taiwan from attack than it is to try and build a semiconductor industry of our own.

In fact, a couple of years ago, the U.S. actually tried asking Taiwan to set up a plant in the U.S. (offering tax breaks and the like). The Taiwanese laughed, paused and realized the Americans were serious, and then laughed even harder. Yes, Taiwan knows damn well it holds a major trump card, and it uses that to its national advantage. And why shouldn’t they? We do the same thing when it comes to our own proprietary stuff, for the same reason.

So, rather than spending 50 years and who knows how much in resources, labor, and whatnot, we instead have decided to simply opt for defending a friendly country against foreign aggression because it’s cheaper and easier. Economics 101 (or actually I think it was 102, covering opportunity costs and comparative advantages in macroeconomics. Been close to 20 years).

What about the 20's and 30's? No seriously tell me why should an American care about Italy invading Ethiopia an African nation? Why is it just you wanting to be a neocuck?

I wasn’t referring to Ethiopia, actually. I was referring to the crises in Europe and Asia (specifically Japan’s invasion of China) that led directly to us getting dragged in for Round 2. And we had interests (not just economic, but also political) in that we were basically reliant on the Royal Navy and the French Army to keep the peace in Europe, while we did the same to a lesser extent in the Pacific generally (given that we controlled the Philippines at the time, along with Guam and Hawaii), and we actually took part in patrolling the Yangtze River because there were at the time a fair number of Americans living in China. In fact, one of the reasons the Japanese felt confident that we wouldn’t do anything in retaliation for them attacking Pearl Harbor was them shooting up a very obviously American warship in the Yangtze, and we kept it out of the press.

A more forceful response would have led to the Japanese realizing that the U.S. did have limits in dealing with their bullshit, and might well have convinced them not to be stupid. Or not, this is Imperial Japan we’re talking about, but doing something sooner might well have convinced them to not push harder and get into a shooting war they couldn’t win.

Dealing with Germany in any other fashion would have been politically difficult, and I’d note that we actually took the “Let’s supply shitloads of arms to the countries fighting Germany” route for about a year before getting directly involved thanks to Japan (and Hitler for making the whole thing official; if he hadn’t we probably would have just kept supplying the British until they either tired out while we beat the living shit out of Japan even faster or people got tired enough of Germany’s shit to motivate us to fight them directly).

Now, as far as the Cold War goes…we did, in fact, try to stay somewhat out of it. Originally it was envisioned as: The U.S., because we learned the hard way after four years of fighting that we did, in fact, need to stay involved because neither the British nor the French had the manpower to field a sufficiently large army to threaten any asshole who tried starting World War III; the British and French because they were still the two major Allied countries in Europe and both had large empires, and could handle the bulk of political issues in Europe and Africa; the Soviet Union, because they were also a giant country with a population that was, at the time, roughly comparable to that of the U.S. and also happened to be occupying the half of Europe that the U.S. wasn’t (insert comments about naïveté on the part of FDR & Co here, no argument but again, outside the scope of this topic); and China, which was a fuckhuge but non-Communist (at the time) country that the U.S. was counting on as its “anchor of democracy” in Asia, allowing for a sizable degree of U.S. disengagement from the region, much as with Europe (although as far as Germany and Japan went, we weren’t leaving until we were sufficiently sure that they wouldn’t start a third world war).

Unfortunately, history would not be so kind. Between Europe being too weak to rebuild, the Russians and especially the Chinese making moves on Korea, and a whole host of other shithead moves around the world (including fucking around in Latin America)…we got dragged into the Cold War. And unlike the previous world wars, we were now facing an opponent that could retaliate against us and friendly nations to a level that, previously, only we had possessed.

Fast forward to 1991…we take a break with the Peace Dividend. Then 9/11 happens. We start focusing on the Middle East, figuring we can more or less ignore Europe and Asia. Then Russia and China start getting markedly more unfriendly and pulling a variety of shit…and here we are today. History, as they say, does not repeat, but it does often rhyme.

So that’s why we have to care. Because we can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Reality just does not work that way.

No they wouldn't the economy of the US and the rest of the Americas are very large half the fucking world should be enough to have a large economy. We don't need Europe or Asia, or Africa.

“Half the world” only in an abstract “looking at a map” sense. Latin America has less than 8.5% of the world’s population, which is double than that of just the U.S….but their economies are also very underdeveloped. They’re focused primarily on agriculture and resource extraction rather than industry or manufacturing. We have some pretty good trade relations with Brazil, sure, which being a large economy is good, but with the other major players (Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina)? Not so much. On one level or another they all have or are in the process of veering to the left economically, and wrecking U.S. investment (not that they actually care; they don’t like us much for historical reasons; despite efforts to try and fix that, it generally ranges from “barely tolerates us” to “outright despise us.” Or in Argentina’s case, they’re sort of OK with us, but have a tendency to screw anyone who invests in their country over. They just do it to everyone equally).

Meanwhile, we have massive trade relationships with some of the most stable countries on Earth, who don’t pull that sort of shit over in Europe. Asia is home to 60% of the world’s population, with Africa another 17%, and you can’t just ignore 3/4 of the planet. Granted, Asia gets much more attention than Africa, but the truth is, we cannot rely on the Western Hemisphere for what we need from an economic standpoint, because they simply don’t have what we need.

Tell me why I should give a fuck about "DA HALL OF COST!" No seriously why should an American care about the holocaust Germany genociding jews, more than other genocides like the Armenians being killed by the Turks? Obviously it's bad, but it would not affect an American.

You should care because a country that’s willing to genocide its own people will do it to anyone if given the chance. The Holocaust is particularly infamous because of how effective the Germans were in perpetrating it, compared to the Turks against the Armenians. And crises like that result in refugee problems, which affect Europe more than it affects us, but still is also partly our problem because the more the Europeans have to deal with that, the fewer resources they have to commit so we don’t have to.

Then Sweden and Finland won't get in. Like I don't think we should give the Turks advanced weapons. But we need to recognize that the Turks are more useful than the Finland or Sweden and their progressive people would be. And we can't get everything we want, I'm ok with not bringing in the Nordic people just to piss off Russia.

Sweden and Finland in the alliance would mean Russia’s effectively cut off from the Baltic like Turkey helps cut them off from the Med. Plus, both countries already contribute decent amounts to NATO missions; bringing them in formally just gives them an Article 5 guarantee and screws the Russians by forcing them to stretch their already limited forces even further. And a Russia that is screwed in this fashion is one that can’t cause further shenanigans.

Forget their domestic politics*; they have anted up a fair amount in this and in other missions, when they really didn’t have to. The upsides are enormous, and any downside…really is so negligible as to be non-existent.

*-This is an especially funny thing to raise a fuss about, given that most of the Western Hemisphere countries you claim we should align with are actually much more left-wing overall (Brazil being the only real exception) than the Nordic countries.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
Yeah, they may or may not vote to allow Finland or Sweden in. If they REALLY want those F35's they'll vote no. If they were fishing for something else not quite as advanced but is just a bargaining strategy they could be convinced to vote yes.
They will never get 35s
But now you’re just shifting the goalposts. This discussion has nothing to do with World War I, it’s about World War II and the Cold War. The motivations for fighting in the latter two are very different from the former, and even the former is more than just “rich bankers protecting their investments.” But that’s a topic for another day.



It’s not so much that we “can’t” make semiconductors, it’s that the various costs (precision engineering, components, resources to make the components, labor skilled enough to assemble the components (which is a fuck of a lot harder than, say, manufacturing hammers at the hammer factory). It’s called institutional knowledge, and it’s something that the U.S., like pretty much every other country, simply does not possess. Taiwan, however, does, because they made the decision to focus on research, development, and production over the past 50 years. No that isn’t a typo: It took Taiwan half a century to get where they are today. It’s an absolute win for them, and U.S. companies that invested in their research also made out very well.

Now, you’re probably asking “Why didn’t the Americans just decide to go it on their own and build stuff here?” Well, a couple of reasons. First, because the amount of money U.S. investors was pretty small compared to Taiwan basically throwing everything it could into the field. It was not a sure thing by any means, and so the decision was made to help fund the research and gain some knowledge, but more importantly, if it all went to shit and turned out to be worthless, it would be Taiwan, not the U.S., that would be facing an economic disaster on an epic scale.

As it was (and still is), Taiwan had a century-long head start in building the tools needed to build the tools to build semiconductors and the factories, etc (yeah the origins of it, like glass etching and glass and silicon manufacturing, go back much further than one might think) and so it turned out to be a massive success that benefited both countries: Taiwan because it gives them an edge in technology and manufacturing that simply doesn’t exist in most of the world, and certainly not on the scale needed today, and the U.S. because it’s actually cheaper and easier to defend Taiwan from attack than it is to try and build a semiconductor industry of our own.

In fact, a couple of years ago, the U.S. actually tried asking Taiwan to set up a plant in the U.S. (offering tax breaks and the like). The Taiwanese laughed, paused and realized the Americans were serious, and then laughed even harder. Yes, Taiwan knows damn well it holds a major trump card, and it uses that to its national advantage. And why shouldn’t they? We do the same thing when it comes to our own proprietary stuff, for the same reason.

So, rather than spending 50 years and who knows how much in resources, labor, and whatnot, we instead have decided to simply opt for defending a friendly country against foreign aggression because it’s cheaper and easier. Economics 101 (or actually I think it was 102, covering opportunity costs and comparative advantages in macroeconomics. Been close to 20 years).



I wasn’t referring to Ethiopia, actually. I was referring to the crises in Europe and Asia (specifically Japan’s invasion of China) that led directly to us getting dragged in for Round 2. And we had interests (not just economic, but also political) in that we were basically reliant on the Royal Navy and the French Army to keep the peace in Europe, while we did the same to a lesser extent in the Pacific generally (given that we controlled the Philippines at the time, along with Guam and Hawaii), and we actually took part in patrolling the Yangtze River because there were at the time a fair number of Americans living in China. In fact, one of the reasons the Japanese felt confident that we wouldn’t do anything in retaliation for them attacking Pearl Harbor was them shooting up a very obviously American warship in the Yangtze, and we kept it out of the press.

A more forceful response would have led to the Japanese realizing that the U.S. did have limits in dealing with their bullshit, and might well have convinced them not to be stupid. Or not, this is Imperial Japan we’re talking about, but doing something sooner might well have convinced them to not push harder and get into a shooting war they couldn’t win.

Dealing with Germany in any other fashion would have been politically difficult, and I’d note that we actually took the “Let’s supply shitloads of arms to the countries fighting Germany” route for about a year before getting directly involved thanks to Japan (and Hitler for making the whole thing official; if he hadn’t we probably would have just kept supplying the British until they either tired out while we beat the living shit out of Japan even faster or people got tired enough of Germany’s shit to motivate us to fight them directly).

Now, as far as the Cold War goes…we did, in fact, try to stay somewhat out of it. Originally it was envisioned as: The U.S., because we learned the hard way after four years of fighting that we did, in fact, need to stay involved because neither the British nor the French had the manpower to field a sufficiently large army to threaten any asshole who tried starting World War III; the British and French because they were still the two major Allied countries in Europe and both had large empires, and could handle the bulk of political issues in Europe and Africa; the Soviet Union, because they were also a giant country with a population that was, at the time, roughly comparable to that of the U.S. and also happened to be occupying the half of Europe that the U.S. wasn’t (insert comments about naïveté on the part of FDR & Co here, no argument but again, outside the scope of this topic); and China, which was a fuckhuge but non-Communist (at the time) country that the U.S. was counting on as its “anchor of democracy” in Asia, allowing for a sizable degree of U.S. disengagement from the region, much as with Europe (although as far as Germany and Japan went, we weren’t leaving until we were sufficiently sure that they wouldn’t start a third world war).

Unfortunately, history would not be so kind. Between Europe being too weak to rebuild, the Russians and especially the Chinese making moves on Korea, and a whole host of other shithead moves around the world (including fucking around in Latin America)…we got dragged into the Cold War. And unlike the previous world wars, we were now facing an opponent that could retaliate against us and friendly nations to a level that, previously, only we had possessed.

Fast forward to 1991…we take a break with the Peace Dividend. Then 9/11 happens. We start focusing on the Middle East, figuring we can more or less ignore Europe and Asia. Then Russia and China start getting markedly more unfriendly and pulling a variety of shit…and here we are today. History, as they say, does not repeat, but it does often rhyme.

So that’s why we have to care. Because we can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Reality just does not work that way.



“Half the world” only in an abstract “looking at a map” sense. Latin America has less than 8.5% of the world’s population, which is double than that of just the U.S….but their economies are also very underdeveloped. They’re focused primarily on agriculture and resource extraction rather than industry or manufacturing. We have some pretty good trade relations with Brazil, sure, which being a large economy is good, but with the other major players (Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina)? Not so much. On one level or another they all have or are in the process of veering to the left economically, and wrecking U.S. investment (not that they actually care; they don’t like us much for historical reasons; despite efforts to try and fix that, it generally ranges from “barely tolerates us” to “outright despise us.” Or in Argentina’s case, they’re sort of OK with us, but have a tendency to screw anyone who invests in their country over. They just do it to everyone equally).

Meanwhile, we have massive trade relationships with some of the most stable countries on Earth, who don’t pull that sort of shit over in Europe. Asia is home to 60% of the world’s population, with Africa another 17%, and you can’t just ignore 3/4 of the planet. Granted, Asia gets much more attention than Africa, but the truth is, we cannot rely on the Western Hemisphere for what we need from an economic standpoint, because they simply don’t have what we need.



You should care because a country that’s willing to genocide its own people will do it to anyone if given the chance. The Holocaust is particularly infamous because of how effective the Germans were in perpetrating it, compared to the Turks against the Armenians. And crises like that result in refugee problems, which affect Europe more than it affects us, but still is also partly our problem because the more the Europeans have to deal with that, the fewer resources they have to commit so we don’t have to.



Sweden and Finland in the alliance would mean Russia’s effectively cut off from the Baltic like Turkey helps cut them off from the Med. Plus, both countries already contribute decent amounts to NATO missions; bringing them in formally just gives them an Article 5 guarantee and screws the Russians by forcing them to stretch their already limited forces even further. And a Russia that is screwed in this fashion is one that can’t cause further shenanigans.

Forget their domestic politics*; they have anted up a fair amount in this and in other missions, when they really didn’t have to. The upsides are enormous, and any downside…really is so negligible as to be non-existent.

*-This is an especially funny thing to raise a fuss about, given that most of the Western Hemisphere countries you claim we should align with are actually much more left-wing overall (Brazil being the only real exception) than the Nordic countries.
The US are starting to build thoer own factories, woth Koreans being majorly invovled.
 

Arch Dornan

Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.

Got them by the balls. May as well include foreign MPs giving Erdogan oral just to troll them.

Turkey has prepared a “Scandinavian dossier” of five demands that it puts forward for Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO. It is reported by Türkiye.

It is noted that next week the delegations from Sweden and Finland will visit Ankara. The diplomats will be received by Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal and will inform them of the requirements.

The “Scandinavian dossier” includes five main points:


  • extradition of members of the “terrorist” Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the FETO organization;

  • designating as terrorist the Syrian National Self-Defense Forces (SNS), which Ankara considers affiliated with the PKK;

  • the end of support for representatives of the “fethullahist organization” (FETO), which the Turkish authorities consider to be involved in the preparation of the coup in 2016;

  • the closure of all organizations associated with structures that are associated in Turkey with terrorists,

  • provision of appropriate guarantees.
 

Airedale260

Well-known member
The US are starting to build thoer own factories, woth Koreans being majorly invovled.

Yeah, and that’s a good thing. But my point was, the reason we have to stay involved in Asia and in particular with Taiwan is because we are just starting to ramp up and it’s going to take a while.

As it is, Taiwan also helps keep the PLAN on the back foot, and having them as a partner means fewer resources we have to commit on our own.


Got them by the balls. May as well include foreign MPs giving Erdogan oral just to troll them.

Well, this should be…interesting. Something tells me Erdogan is either going to get some kind of back room deal out of it, he’s going to get Turkey tossed out of NATO, or he’s going to unexpectedly die because everyone else is fed up with his shit. Or he might get told that if he doesn’t shut the fuck up, America is going to do something to favor Greece in a dispute or two, and if he doesn’t want that, he needs to shut the fuck up.

Personally, I’d prefer #3 for the sheer entertainment value but #1 is a lot less bloody…#4 would probably just result in us bombing the shit out of the TRNC and its military…
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
Frankly i've expected Erdogan to be far more crazy ambitious in his demands, including stuff like F-35's or being admitted to the EU, and then possibly negotiating down from that.
Confining the demands merely to Kurd and Gulenist related ones is downright modest by Erdogan standards.
 

Arch Dornan

Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
Well, this should be…interesting. Something tells me Erdogan is either going to get some kind of back room deal out of it, he’s going to get Turkey tossed out of NATO, or he’s going to unexpectedly die because everyone else is fed up with his shit. Or he might get told that if he doesn’t shut the fuck up, America is going to do something to favor Greece in a dispute or two, and if he doesn’t want that, he needs to shut the fuck up.

Personally, I’d prefer #3 for the sheer entertainment value but #1 is a lot less bloody…#4 would probably just result in us bombing the shit out of the TRNC and its military…
I lean toward him folding into a compromise. Last time he survived a coup but I don't know if he can do it a second time.
 

Airedale260

Well-known member
I lean toward him folding into a compromise. Last time he survived a coup but I don't know if he can do it a second time.

Given the state of Turkey’s economy, probably not. OTOH, I think he’s tried to coup proof the military as much as possible so threatening that may not work this time.
 

bintananth

behind a desk

Got them by the balls. May as well include foreign MPs giving Erdogan oral just to troll them.
Tame compared to what Greece insisted Maccedonia do: rename your country, change your flag, and more.

It's now North Maccedonia, TYVM.
 

Airedale260

Well-known member
Tame compared to what Greece insisted Maccedonia do: rename your country, change your flag, and more.

It's now North Maccedonia, TYVM.

To be fair to the Greeks, Macedonia was also a region within their country and also had connections with Alexander the Great. And to their credit once the dispute was resolved Greece dropped its objections to NATO membership quickly and didn’t shift the goalposts.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
To be fair to the Greeks, Macedonia was also a region within their country and also had connections with Alexander the Great. And to their credit once the dispute was resolved Greece dropped its objections to NATO membership quickly and didn’t shift the goalposts.
Still a shitty thing to do.

Sorta like the "Pro-America parts of America" Republican talking points I remember getting tossed around back in '08 that did not do any favors to Republican candidates back then.
 

Airedale260

Well-known member
Still a shitty thing to do.

Sorta like the "Pro-America parts of America" Republican talking points I remember getting tossed around back in '08 that did not do any favors to Republican candidates back then.

Perhaps, but as I recall certain segments of FYROM were making revanchist noises about the region within Greece. So it’s not like the Greeks were actually doing it just to be assholes.

Erdogan, OTOH, is really testing everyone’s patience. I don’t think we are at the “boot Turkey from NATO” point just yet, but his antics are getting increasingly tiresome.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
Perhaps, but as I recall certain segments of FYROM were making revanchist noises about the region within Greece. So it’s not like the Greeks were actually doing it just to be assholes..
My siblings and I have absolutely zero traceable European or Native American ancestors.
 

Airedale260

Well-known member
There is no mechanism for booting a nation out of NATO. Only neocons want that.

Bruh.

“The neocons” are the political segment least likely to want Turkey out of NATO. And more to the point, while you are technically correct, it’s been argued it’s possible to do it on the basis of Turkey violating its treaty commitments (by its cozying up to Russia and, arguably, Erdogan steadily disassembling Turkey’s government in favor of one-man rule under him).

I’m not saying I agree with the suggestion (personally I’d rather keep them given how strategically important Turkey is to the U.S.), but there have been rumblings about it in the past, and to pull this now over what amounts to domestic political concerns is asinine.

Though you’ve made it clear you don’t actually support NATO anyway, so why do you even care? If we were to disengage from Turkey, wouldn’t that make you happier?

My siblings and I have absolutely zero traceable European or Native American ancestors.

I’m not sure I see how that is relevant to the Macedonia dispute, but…OK?
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member


Well, looks like the Kurds/Rojava is getting thrown under the bus to get Erdy to ok Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

Something tells me any good will the US/West had left with the YPG and friends is gone.

What good will? The PKK is officially recognized by EU and USA as a terrorist organization since a very long time, and Kurd's clumsy attempts to keep the PKK and YPG formally separate are not something that is hard to see through. This faction of politics in Turkey was present there since a very long time, and before the fallout of Cold War's end were widely recognized as Soviet aligned and they weren't even hiding it.
The post Arab Spring tactical alliance with them against islamists in Syria was not some great favor they did to the west. It was a tactical alliance, with an understanding that if anything, its the Kurds who are getting a favor, in form of help in not getting purged by said islamists.
But intentionally or by some sort of ideologically driven delusional hope they have overinterpreted that as some sort of forever alliance, strong enough to even overcome the fact that Turkey is in NATO in a completely non-secret, obvious and unquestionable way, and pushed their luck accordingly in their negotiations with governments of Syria, Turkey and Iraq.
Now obviously its not working out well for them, should have made deals when the winds of politics were still blowing in their favor.
 

Arch Dornan

Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.


Well, looks like the Kurds/Rojava is getting thrown under the bus to get Erdy to ok Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

Something tells me any good will the US/West had left with the YPG and friends is gone.

So that's the bargaining chip.
 

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